IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0117 MS/240
Held at: Royal Society
Title: Wollaston, William Hyde (1766-1828)
Date(s): c 1766-1828
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: Unknown
Name of creator(s): Wollaston | William Hyde | 1766-1828 | physiologist, chemist, and physicist
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
William Hyde Wollaston: born at East Dereham, Norfolk, 1766; third son of the author Francis Wollaston and his wife, Althea Hyde; educated at a private school at Lewisham for two years and then at Charterhouse, 1774-1778; a pensioner of Caius College Cambridge, 1782; scholar of Caius College Cambridge, 1782-1787; appointed a senior fellow, 1787; retained his fellowship until his death; while at Cambridge, became intimate with John Brinkley and John Pond and studied astronomy with their assistance; graduated MB, 1788; on leaving Cambridge, worked as a physician in Huntingdon, 1789; subsequently went to Bury St Edmund's; became acquainted with the Reverend Henry Hasted, a close friend and lifelong correspondent; MD, 1793; elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793 and admitted, 1794; admitted candidate of the Royal College of Physicians, 1794; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1795; went to London and set up practice at no 18 Cecil Street, Strand, 1797; censor of the Royal College of Physicians, 1798; increasing devotion to various branches of natural science, including physics, chemistry, and botany, led him to retire from medical practice, 1800; looked to support himself by chemical research; took a house, no 14 Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square, and set up a laboratory, 1801; innovations relating to platinum including the discovery of palladium and of a process for producing pure platinum and welding it into vessels, c 1804; awarded the Copley medal, 1802; Secretary of the Royal Society, 1804-1816; Fellow of the Geological Society, 1812; suggested in evidence before a committee of the House of Commons the replacement of the various gallons then in use by the 'imperial gallon' (adopted in the Weights and Measures Act of 1824), 1814; served as commissioner of the Royal Society on the Board of Longitude, 1818-1828; a member of the Royal Commission on Weights and Measures that rejected the adoption of the decimal system of weights and measures, 1819; frequently elected a vice-president of the Royal Society; declined a proposal to be nominated president of the Royal Society, but consented to act as president until the election, 1820; elected a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences, 1823; elected to the Royal College of Physicians, 1824; suffered occasional partial blindness in both eyes from 1800; attacked by symptoms said to be signify a fatal brain tumour, 1827; set about dictating papers on his unrecorded work, many of which were published posthumously; transferred £1,000 to the Geological Society (which formed 'the Wollaston Fund' from which the society awards annually the Wollaston medal and the balance of the interest), 1828; transferred £2,000 to the Royal Society to form the `Donation Fund', the interest to be applied in promoting experimental research, 1828; awarded a royal medal by the Royal Society for his work, 1828; elected a member of the Astronomical Society, 1828; died, 1828; his house was afterwards inhabited by his friend Charles Babbage. Publications: fifty-six papers on pathology, physiology, chemistry, optics, mineralogy, crystallography, astronomy, electricity, mechanics, and botany, the majority read before the Royal Society and published in the Philosophical Transactions.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Diplomas and other honours given by various academies and societies to William Hyde Wollaston.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Conditions governing access:
Open
Conditions governing reproduction:
No publication without written permission. Apply to Archivist in the first instance.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
Table of contents at front of portfolio.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
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Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Copied from the Royal Society catalogue by Sarah Drewery.
Date(s) of descriptions: Feb 2009.